Ever since shoes have been developed with eyelets and shoe laces for retaining the shoes in place on human feet, mankind has been confronted with the difficulty of tying the laces, keeping the laces tied, untying the laces, adjusting the laces, to say nothing of teaching children how to tie shoe laces. Tying shoe laces is also difficult for persons suffering from arthritis or other maladies or injuries to the hands and fingers.
Over the years a variety of shoe lace fastening and holding devices have been developed including Boden U.S. Pat. No. 5,156,574 and Murai U.S. Pat. No. 4,839,946. In these devices there is a requirement for activation of either a spring mechanism or the like to retain the fastener and laces in the tightened condition. In none of these references does pulling on the laces act to cause the fastener to grip the laces tighter to prevent loosening thereof.
It would be advantageous to provide a fastener adapted to be connected to shoe laces and drawstrings which, when the laces or drawstrings are pulled, tightens the fastener to the laces against release of relaxing of the laces and further which can easily be released to loosen the laces.